A variety of different types of voting equipment are used in the United States and throughout the world. In many jurisdictions, a voter receives a paper ballot on which various contests, i.e., voting options and corresponding mark spaces, are printed. The voter votes by darkening or otherwise marking the appropriate mark spaces on the paper ballot. The marked paper ballot may then be dropped in a ballot box, which is transferred to a central election office for tabulation by a high speed ballot tabulation device. Alternatively, many jurisdictions provide a smaller precinct tabulator at each polling place that allows a voter to directly insert her ballot into the device for tabulation. The number of precinct tabulators will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction depending on the size of the county and the number of voting precincts. Some jurisdictions will have as few as one or two precinct tabulators in various polling locations, while others may have well over 1000 precinct tabulators.
Precinct tabulators, such as the Model 100® and DS200® devices sold by Election Systems & Software, LLC, are well known to those skilled in the art. Upon scanning a paper ballot, the precinct tabulator alerts the voter if there are any ballot irregularities associated with the ballot, such as one or more under votes (when the voter has not made a voting selection for a contest) and one or more over votes (when the voter has made too many voting selections for a contest). The precinct tabulator also determines if the ballot is blank, which may have been caused by a voter using a writing instrument that the device cannot read. While the precinct tabulator will warn voters of these ballot irregularities, the voter often has the option to override the warning and allow the device to accept the ballot “as is.” In doing so, the precinct tabulator will process the ballot according to the election rules for the state in which it is being used. For example, an over voted contest will typically not credit any candidate with a vote. The votes are then tabulated and the election results are stored in a removable USB flash drive that is connected to a USB port interface of the precinct tabulator. At the end of election day, the election results for the precinct tabulator are transmitted or otherwise provided to the central election office for accumulation with the election results of other precinct tabulators in the jurisdiction. The central election office is then required to report the election results by voting precinct in accordance with state election laws.
In general, there are two methods of transmitting the unofficial election results from a precinct tabulator to the central election office. In some cases, the precinct tabulator is equipped with a telecommunications modem that transmits the election results over a secure internet connection or a dialup phone line to the central election office. A problem with this method is that a dedicated wireless connection must be assigned to each precinct tabulator or a phone line must be available near each precinct tabulator. It can be costly to maintain a dedicated wireless subscription for each precinct tabulator at the polling place. Another problem is that when data communications equipment is physically integrated with a vote capture system like a precinct tabulator, it raises security concerns including potential perceptions of vote count tampering through the network, casting suspicion on the election results. Also, because any device that is physically connected to or provided on the precinct tabulator is subject to certification, any obsolescence of transmission equipment or technology has an impact on re-certification.
In other cases, the USB flash drive that stores the election results for the precinct tabulator is taken to one of several regional collection sites from which the election results are transmitted to the central election office over a secure interne connection or a dialup connection. A problem with this method is the need to manually deliver the USB flash drive to a regional collection site. Also, because the USB flash drive must be connected to a USB port of a personal computer at the regional collection site in order to transfer the election results to the central election office, the personal computer is subject to certification and the obsolescence problem discussed above.